David Marusek (born January 21, 1951 in Buffalo, New York) is an American author. Marusek worked as a graphic designer for about twenty years and for eleven years he also taught graphic design at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He became serious about a writing career around 1986; success began soon after he attended Clarion West in 1992. His third published story, "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy," garnered attention. In 1999 his novella "The Wedding Album" won the Theodore Sturgeon Award and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella. His first novel, Counting Heads (a much bigger expansion of "...Joy"), was published by Tor Books in 2005, and was the subject of Dave Itzkoff's debut "Across the Universe" column in the March 5, 2006 The New York Times.